Yesterday’s Advisor introduced the Mall of America’s wellness program. Today we’ll look beyond their Fruity Friday program
at some more physically involved programs, and take a look at a unique wellness program guide.
The Mall of America, located in Bloomington, Minnesota and one of the largest shopping malls in the country, prides itself as being a top tourist destination.
Employees ‘Gruve’ with NEAT
One new program at the Mall, with 10 employees currently acting as a test group, is the "Gruve Solution" offered through Muve, Inc. Based on research completed by the Mayo Clinic, Gruve is aimed at increasing non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), defined as all activity that occurs during a 24-hour period that is not exercise-specific activity. It includes, for example, energy expended during activities such as sitting, standing, walking, talking, and fidgeting.
Corporate wellness programs show great ROI. And they are win-win—employees feel better and are more productive, and employers reap the benefits. Even small improvements make a difference. Test drive Workplace Wellness with no cost or risk.
The Gruve Solution device, worn on the waist, measures calorie burning on an individualized basis for participants based on their metabolism. "Participants use the tool to help them increase their NEAT activity level to better manage weight," says Maureen Hooley Bausch, the Mall’s executive vice president of Business Development.
After the test phase is completed, the Mall may offer a lending library of these tools that team members can borrow to learn how to put more calorie-burning activities into their day to help manage weight and live healthier lifestyles, adds Susan Amundson, HR director of the Mall’s the 900-employee workforce.
The Mall of America’s "Walk to Wellness" program is also growing in popularity. It’s a takeoff on the popular walking program that is open to the public, notes Bausch. The public program consists of 2,500 participants who walk the almost three-quarters of a mile inside the Mall (four times around equals more than 3 miles), Bausch explains.
Some team members are walking at the Mall before or after work or on weekends and using the same type of swipe card that the public walkers use to track their accomplishments, as well as log books to track their walking done at home. The 22 team members participating so far have walked 437 hours to date.
As part of the open enrollment period for employee benefits starting in 2010, the Mall may add testing, such as blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), and cholesterol, and programs for identifying health risk factors.
"We’ve found that you have to ‘put some meat’ to your wellness programming to hold employees accountable," says Amundson. "You can’t just stay in the information awareness stage. That’s the direction we’re going."
Planning a Wellness Effort? Just Do It
Amundson comments that if you are thinking about instituting employee wellness programming, the best thing to do is just begin. "Find something that will resonate with your group of employees and begin. At some point, you do need [to secure] long-term support from leadership and you also need somebody who can give the programming the attention it deserves."
Meanwhile, how is your wellness program? Not so hot or not at all? Well-structured and well-run wellness programs generate ROI of up to 300 percent—music to management’s ears! But the key words are well-structured and well-run. Poorly structured programs just spin their wheels—no health benefit and no positive ROI, either.
Many readers have told us that BLR’s comprehensive guidebook, Workplace Wellness: Healthy Employees, Healthy Families, Healthy ROI has helped them get programs up and running that achieve wellness objectives with a great ROI, while avoiding the legal hassles that, these days, seem to accompany any worthwhile venture in HR.
Wellness—NO downside! Impressive ROI, so management’s happy. Better health and employees are happy. And that means HR is happy. BLR’s Workplace Wellness is the key to developing your workplace wellness program.
It’s a comprehensive guide that takes you step-by-step through setting up a program, from convincing management all the way through to creating and implementing a workable plan for your workplace. The guide also includes a vast collection of ready-to-use forms, handouts, and checklists that both structure your program and provide the metrics to prove its effectiveness to management’s satisfaction.
If you’d like to examine Workplace Wellness: Healthy Employees, Healthy Families, Healthy ROI on a no-cost, no-obligation basis for 30 days, we can arrange for you to do so. Let us know and we’ll be happy to set it up.
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